PARIS -- Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, the onetime
adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump , spoke at a party congress for Marine Le
Pen's National Front in the French city of Lille last weekend. A few weeks
earlier, Le Pen's niece, former French parliament member Marion Marechal-Le Pen,
crossed the Atlantic to speak at the annual Conservative Political Action
Conference just outside Washington, D.C. Both performances demonstrated the
difficulty of projecting politics and strategy from one culture onto another.

Before she left the National Front last year after her aunt's loss to Emmanuel
Macron in the May presidential election, Marechal-Le Pen was viewed here in
France as a representative of the more free-market but socially conservative
side of the party. Marechal-Le Pen's CPAC speech nonetheless revealed a critical
and oft-ignored difference between French and American society.

"Without nation, and without family, the limits of the common good, natural law,
and collective morality disappears, as the reign of egoism continues," Marechal-Le
Pen told the CPAC audience.

Exactly how much collectivist rhetoric can one fit into a single sentence? It's
hard to imagine a proponent of free-market and limited government in the U.S.
cheering for any kind of "collective morality" or "common good." Another word
for that would be "groupthink." And this was coming from Marechal-Le Pen, who is
certainly no leftist.

But in France, the concept of collectivism has long been injected directly into
the beating heart of the nation. "Liberté, égalité, fraternité," the national
motto, implies that freedom and equality are possible through the sheer will to
remain unified.

It's a nice thought in theory, but useless in practice. The most egregious
offenders in France are the labor unions that control public institutions --
communist relics from a bygone era that routinely hold the French citizenry
hostage at the cost of taxpayer money. The latest example features the unions
representing French rail workers. These unions have threatened strikes later
this month in response to the French government's attempt at reforming the rail
system -- something government representatives were democratically elected to do
by the people.

Can one be truly free -- to succeed, to thrive, to compete and to win -- while
at the same time being burdened by the state and by collective society? Perhaps
the biggest difference between the right and the left is that there are more
people on the right who view individualism as morally righteous. These people
tend to believe that the only way individuals can be left alone to create wealth
and opportunity for themselves -- which can then lift up others -- is not by
force or imposition but by choice. Meanwhile, both the left and the right in
France -- including Marechal-Le Pen, who is supposed to be on the side of
liberty -- have been conditioned to treat individualism as egotistical in polite
company.

When Bannon crossed the pond to speak at the National Front's convention, the
theme he really needed to hammer home to help unlock France's potential was one
that, as an entrepreneur and free-market capitalist, he was eminently qualified
to promote: individual freedom. Bannon's speech should have been about
individualism. There would have been no more radical statement to make in
France, where if you're not encouraging socialism under the thin veil of
solidarity, then you're considered immoral.

Instead, Bannon splatter-painted his rhetorical tableau with populism,
immigration, nationalism, protectionism and a mixed bag of ideas that have
played well in America -- but only because they reflect America's actual
concerns. France isn't there yet. Unlike France, America has already come to
grips with the importance of individualism in resolving nearly all of the issues
that Bannon raised. His entire speech should have been about connecting these
dots.

Even just being allowed to break away from societal groupthink and collectivist
rhetoric means that you suddenly have individual rights that supersede the
collective. You represent the smallest unit of freedom and free will. The state
in France is omnipresent, responsible for imposing all of the ills evoked by
Bannon.

It's only through strong-willed individuals breaking free of the system that
collectivism falls apart. And when that happens, only those who truly need the
state are left depending on it. This is what confiscatory governments fear: that
most people won't need them. And if people no longer need to rely on government
handouts, they might start asking: "Why am I paying for this?" Without a steady
stream of revenue to flush down the drain at will, the government loses its
ability to impose leftist ideals on the country. Leftism never comes cheap.

By failing to address the lack of individual freedom in France, Bannon missed a
golden opportunity to introduce true anarchy into a leftist system.